#fairy!reader

True, you’d been perfectly content to let him stew in your silent wrath after the whole “too many sweets” debacle, but your grudge was softening. He had tried to make you happy, after all. And in your mind, there was only one way to properly make amends: with food, specifically fairy food.

You worked on it for hours, gathering ingredients that didn’t quite exist in the human kitchen but could be coaxed into reality if you knew the right trick. A dusting of moonflower pollen. A sliver of crystallized dawnlight. Honey that shimmered faintly with its own glow. To you, the little pie came together perfectly: light, delicate, and filled with flavors that would make another fairy hum in delight for days.

When you finally set it down in front of Bucky, you pushed it toward him without a word, watching his face carefully. His eyes softened, the corner of his mouth twitching into that small smile that meant you’d just made his entire week. He didn’t even hesitate before cutting himself a generous slice and taking a bite.

The first chew was bliss. The second was hesitation. By the third, Bucky was swallowing with a look that said he was determined to finish it for your sake but already regretting his life choices. You tilted your head.

It didn’t take long before he was leaning back in his chair, hand resting protectively over his stomach. You knew exactly what that meant.

Your eyes widened. A tummy ache. Just like the one you’d had. You fluttered over to him, frowning deeply at him. How could he have gotten one from fairy food? That was impossible. Fairy food was light, healing even. At least, for you.

Still, you clambered up onto the couch beside him and then crawled over until you were curled up right on top of his stomach, the way a cat might. You pressed your cheek against him, trying to will the ache away with your warmth. He chuckled quietly, even though you could feel the tension in his body.

From the armchair, Steve glanced up from his book, taking in the scene. His mouth twitched, somewhere between amusement and concern. “I’m guessing that pie wasn’t exactly made for humans,” He said slowly, his tone suggesting he was trying to piece together the problem. “Whatever’s in it probably didn’t agree with him.”

You shot him a look over your shoulder, not bothering to hide your skepticism. It still didn’t make sense. You’d had human sweets and felt okay if you didn’t eat too much, but Bucky had fairy pie and he felt awful.

The only fair conclusion you decided was that humans were fragile.

You stayed where you were for the rest of the afternoon, small and stubborn on his stomach, guarding him until you were sure he’d be fine again.

“They’re candy,” He explained softly. “Sweet and tiny. You’ll like it.”

You eyed him narrowly, suspiciously.

He smiled. “I had a bunch as a kid. Made myself sick on them once.”

That wasn’t the encouragement he thought it was. Still, you sniffed one, then licked it, waiting to see that it didn’t immediately kill you. And, after another moment of deliberation, you ate it.

It was… astonishing.

You blinked, pupils dilating like a kitten catching sunlight. You pointed to the red one as Bucky chuckled, plucked it out, and handed it over like it was treasure.

From there, it spiraled fast.

Bucky, with a pleased little gleam in his eye, started showing you all kinds of sweets over the next hour: gummy worms, peanut butter cups, sour strings, cotton candy, mini donuts, and some unholy thing called “fudge.” At one point, he even tried to build you a little “candy charcuterie board” with snack cakes and sugar-dusted cereal.

You were in fairy heaven. Sparkling, buzzing, and floating just a little more than usual. You even flopped onto his shoulder in giddy, sticky bliss after tasting caramel for the first time.

Everything was perfect… until it wasn’t.

The crash hit you like a curse.

One second, you were spinning in the air with a glittery paper straw in your mouth and chocolate on your nose. The next, you were clutching your belly, drooped dramatically over the rim of a coffee mug on the counter.

Bucky leaned down. “You okay?”

You made a soft sound, probably some type of groan as you wobbled your fingers like you were casting your final spell. Then, you collapsed with your cheek smooshed to the table.

Steve, walking into the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder, froze.

“What happened?” He asked carefully.

“She had, uh… a few too many sweets,” Bucky answered guiltily, looking very much like a man who’d made a mistake and knew it.

“How many’s a few?”

“…Maybe twelve?”

You let out a soft, pained whimper.

Steve leaned down next to your crumpled form, eyebrows raised. “Did you give her fudge and licorice? In the same hour?”

Bucky grimaced. “I didn’t think she’d actually– Cmon, Stevie. She was sparkling and smiling, how do you say no to that?”

“She’s a fairy. Not a hummingbird, Buck.”

“Apparently, she’s both.”

You let out another suffering moan and whispering that you’d been poisoned.

Steve blinked. “Wait. Did she just say–?”

“She thinks she’s dying,” Bucky said, gently patting your head.

You nodded in agreement, weakly.

Steve stood back up with a heavy sigh. “You’ve got a tummy ache.”

You squinted up at him, confused.

Bucky bit back a laugh. “A stomachache. It happens when you have too much sugar.”

You looked like you had just been betrayed by every known fact in life.

“Unfortunately, it’s normal,” Steve added. “But you’re gonna be fine.”

You narrowed your eyes at both of them, lips pale, limbs limp, and tucked your face back into the coffee mug with a grumble of absolute disgust.

You didn’t speak to them for the rest of the day. You didn’t look at them. You didn’t even flutter near them.

You tucked yourself behind the folds of the living room curtains like a sulking ghost, arms crossed and wings flicking every time one of them had the nerve to enter the room. If Steve called your name, you gave him silence. If Bucky peeked around the corner and asked, “Still mad?” You slowly turned your head away with the theatrical flair of someone who had been deeply betrayed.

At one point, Bucky tried to tempt you out with a small oatmeal cookie balanced on a napkin, but you batted it off the table with one flick of a book and made dramatic eye contact as it crumbled to the floor.

He sighed. “Really committing to the grudge, huh?”

You didn’t respond. You merely glared at his traitorous mortal mouth, the same one that had smiled while offering you treats, and then lied about what they would do to your insides. (Or more specifically, didn’t tell you what would happen.)

Later that day, you relocated to a high bookshelf and perched there like a brooding gargoyle with your knees tucked under your chin. You stayed up there for hours, occasionally shifting just enough to remind them of your presence. At one point, Bucky tried again to sneak in a whispered apology with a marshmallow on a toothpick like a peace offering. You plucked it from the toothpick without a word… and dropped it directly into the fish tank.

Sam came by later that evening and asked, “What’s up with the fairy?”

“She thinks she was poisoned,” Steve muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Bucky just crossed his arms. “To be fair… we might have overdone it.”

“We?” Steve raised an eyebrow at his friend.

Bucky had the decency to look sheepish while you didn’t even roll your eyes. You just laid back on your shelf, looking at the ceiling, as though their words were distant echoes in the void of your broken trust.

You were not ready to forgive. You were not ready for more sugar. And you were definitely not ready to be offered another cupcake.

Well, one cookie after the cupcake Bucky had snuck you under the table. And after the bowl of marshmallows you’d discovered in the pantry (leftover from some forgotten movie night, probably). And maybe after the hot cocoa, which had far too much whipped cream and was definitely not your first of the day.

The sugar hit you hard, and you were having a great time.

Bucky had laughed when you tried to race him through the hallway, wings fluttering in a blur. He didn’t even flinch when you bumped into the side of the couch mid-loop and spun yourself in a dizzy little circle before face-planting into a throw pillow. He’d just snorted and said something like, “Lightweight,” before tossing you a chocolate coin as a reward for effort.

But Steve? Steve saw the crash coming.

You could feel his Captain Voice creeping in even before he said anything. It was there in the way he folded his arms, in the furrow of his brow, in that subtle shift from Steve to Responsible Steve™. You were curled up on the kitchen counter, eating mini marshmallows out of the bag with both hands like a squirrel when he finally stepped in.

“That’s enough,” He said firmly, plucking the bag from your grip.

You blinked up at him slowly. Your hands still hovered midair, fingers sugar-dusted and betrayed.

“No more sugar for a week,” Steve added, like it was a reasonable sentence. Like he hadn’t just crushed your spirit under the weight of a thousand uneaten cookies.

You stared at him blank and hollow, the very essence of betrayal incarnate.

And then, still holding that expression, you slowly, very slowly, faded from view.

Steve sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Oh, come on.”

But you were already gone. Or at least, invisible enough to make a point.

You didn’t reappear once. There wasn’t even a shimmer or a puff of fairy dust. Just a thick, judgmental silence in the air as Steve sighed and went about tidying the kitchen like he hadn’t just committed a crime against your entire being.

The cabinet door closed. Then it opened again.

He blinked.

The bag of marshmallows he'd pushed to the back suddenly floated off the shelf and thunked onto the floor like it had tripped on purpose. He raised a brow.

“You can’t sneak sugar when you’re invisible either,” Steve warned calmly.

The bag shuffled across the floor anyway, then stopped, then shuffled again just to make a point. You didn’t respond with words or sound. Just movement: the slow, sulky drag of sugarless defiance.

He sighed heavily and took the bag from the ground, placing it securely into a locked cabinet.

When he moved to the living room, you followed. The remote on the coffee table turned the TV off the moment he sat down. A little puff of cool air ghosted against his neck, and he frowned, glancing behind him with a soft, "…Hello?"

Nothing.

You’d made yourself presence-only. A haunting with a mission. And your mission? Maximum petty protest.

By noon, Steve had stepped on two glittery socks that mysteriously ended up on the stairs, nearly spilled his water twice when you nudged his elbow at just the right moment, and spent ten whole minutes searching for his phone before finally giving up. It was on the ceiling, taped there upside-down like it belonged.

He was clearly trying to stay patient.

But when you rearranged all the throw pillows to spell “S-U-G-A-R” and one of them literally floated past his head mid-conversation with Bucky, he finally groaned, dragged his hand down his face, and muttered, “I am too old for this.”

You, in response, poked his ear. Just once.

It made him flinch.

“I know you’re pouting.”

The only answer was a puff of air that blew out the candle on the table.

Bucky, on the other hand, was no help. He just smirked and leaned on the counter, watching Steve try to bargain with the invisible force of chaos you’d become.

“You really gonna let her starve like that?” Bucky teased.

“I said no sugar, not no food. She had fruit at lunch,” Steve grumbled, rubbing his temple.

“You’re lucky she hasn’t hexed your shoes to melt.”

He checked his boots.

You hadn’t. Yet. But the day wasn’t over. Not even close.

You didn’t reappear at lunch, after training, or even when Bucky casually tossed a blueberry your way, and it vanished mid-air like the world's slowest magic trick. He blinked, then sighed. “Still on strike, huh?”

Steve keeps pretending not to notice. Keeps walking right past the floating pens and ignores the sticky notes you rearranged to spell “Mean” on his clipboard. He keeps acting like the creak of the cabinet late at night is just the air conditioning and not you trying to sniff out another bag of marshmallows.

But you’re still committed. Fully invisible, fully pouty. You poke his side every time he sits down with a snack that you could be sharing. You even rearranged his bookshelf alphabetically just to confuse him because he had it by height.

He gives you one last warning glance during dinner after you sneak a spoonful of mashed potatoes and clank the spoon onto his plate.

“You done?” He asks the empty air.

You float a fork into your hand, twirl it in a slow, dramatic circle, and then dramatically stab a green bean.

He exhales, closes his eyes, and mutters, “I said one week.”

Later that night, he finds his socks stacked into the shape of a frowning face on the dresser.

Still invisible, you hover nearby, watching him fold laundry like you aren’t right there sulking like a ghost with a vendetta. It’s not even about the sugar anymore, it’s the principle.

You’ve been good that week too. You’ve only caused minor emotional damage.

And then, finally… he cracks.

You flutter into the kitchen to find sticky note on the counter in Steve’s handwriting.

You can have one more cookie.

Just that.

You stare at it. And slowly… slowly… reappear.

He doesn’t even look up from his book on the couch, just flips the page and says, “Took you long enough.”

You don’t say a word, but he hears the rustle of the snack bag you pull from the pantry. The slow, deliberate crunch of victory. You plop down beside him on the couch, not speaking or necessarily apologizing, but you do offer him one of your treats as a silent truce.

He takes it, bites into it, and murmurs, “We’re back to fruit tomorrow.”

You slide a pillow over your face and groan. But you’re visible again and the house doesn’t feel haunted anymore.